Movie Review – Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)
Opening in the theaters this weekend is Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a film based on the characters in the Tom Clancy universe. This is the fifth Jack Ryan film to be released to the theaters after The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of All Fears. Unlike the previous films, this new movie is NOT based on a Tom Clancy book.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is an origin story of how Jack Ryan became involved with the CIA, and also his relationship with future wife Dr. Catherine Muller. This film follows along as Jack Ryan discovers financial discrepancies in Russia that point towards an upcoming terrorist attack in the U.S. It’s up to the young CIA agent to uncover the mystery and stop the attack before it kills innocent people and cripples the economy of the United States of America.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit stars Chris Pine in the lead role of Dr. Jack Ryan. Supporting him are Kevin Costner as CIA Agent Thomas Harper, Keira Knightly as Dr. Caroline Muller, and Kenneth Branagh as Viktor Cherevin.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit begins in 2001 as Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) is a college student in London, England. One day he notices a commotion as his fellow students are rushing to the television sets to watch a breaking news story. It’s September 11, 2001, and terrorists have just flown hijacked aircraft into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
This inspires Jack Ryan to fight for his country. He drops out of his college doctorate program to join the Marine Corps.
Fast forward to 2003.
Jack Ryan is a lieutenant in the Marines and serving in Afghanistan. While he’s on the front lines with his fellow soldiers, Ryan is also researching financial material and stopping unusual trends. His work has been noticed by people in high levels in the government.
Suddenly a surface-to-air missile strikes Ryan’s helicopter and it crashes to the ground. Ryan is badly injured in the crash, and it’s race against time to save him from being paralyzed. The young officer is rushed to an air base where he receives the necessary treatment to save his legs.
Jack is then transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and he has to go through extensive physical therapy to learn how to walk again. That’s where he meets Caroline “Cathy” Muller (Keira Knightly), a medical student who helps Jack learn to walk again. She pushes him and he regains the use of his legs again. Jack asks Cathy out to dinner, but she refuses to date him until he is no longer her patient.
While going through therapy, Jack Ryan is approached by Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner), a naval officer who works for the CIA. Harper was one of the people who have read Jack’s financial reports from when he was serving in Afghanistan. He offers to send Jack Ryan back to school to finish his doctorate degree in finance, and then to have him work as a banker on Wall Street. In exchange, all Jack has to do is feed certain pieces of information back to him, essentially being a spy. Jack accepts the offer and joins the CIA.
Fast forward to 2013.
Dr. Jack Ryan is a compliance officer with a prestigious bank on Wall Street. He lives in New York City with Dr. Cathy Mueller, his steady girlfriend and recent fiancée.
One day Jack is analyzing a bunch of Russian bank accounts that happen to have a large amount of American currency. The problem is that the accounts are locked from being accessed by American computers. The only way to further investigate the files is to fly to Moscow, Russia, and be there in person.
Jack’s relationship with his girlfriend is being strained by his work. His behavior is increasingly erratic and she suspects that he may be cheating on her. This is further complicated when she discovers a movie theater ticket in the pocket of his pants. What Cathy didn’t know was that the theater was a meeting point between Jack and his contact in the government, and he had to be there to pass along critical information.
The government contact informs Jack that he needs to follow-up the financial information and go to Moscow. When he informs Cathy about his business trip, Cathy wants to go with him to help spice up their relationship. Jack disagrees with her being in Moscow (at this point she doesn’t know that he’s working with the CIA), but he does agree to spend a few days with her in Paris, France. They agree to meet in Paris in a couple of days.
When Jack Ryan arrives in Moscow, he’s greeted by his bodyguard / taxi driver, a large man from Uganda. The man certainly seems to be friendly, but something about him seems suspicious. Jack is taken to his hotel and his bodyguard insists on going with him to make sure that his luxurious suite is safe. When they’re inside of the hotel room the bodyguard pulls out a pistol and tries to kill Jack. There’s a lengthy fight scene in the hotel room as Jack Ryan fights back and ultimately manages to kill the man by drowning him in a bath tub.
It’s a surreal moment as Jack realizes what just happened and the fact that he just killed a man. He contacts the CIA and alerts the agency to what just happened. Jack is instructed to wait for the clean-up crew to arrive, and then to go to his designated meeting point to meet his CIA contact. Jack is still shaken from the fight and he needs to have the person on the phone explain the meeting point more clearly. He claims that he only spent a few months being trained at the CIA and had forgotten some of the training.
The clean-up crew arrives and Jack heads out to his meeting place. While walking he’s being followed by a taxi car. Jack has to ditch the car and also make a phone call to Cathy, informing her that he won’t be able to meet her in Paris. Cathy is disappointed by the news and she’s more convinced than ever that Jack is having an affair.
Waiting at the meeting point is none other than Thomas Harper. Why he’s in Moscow isn’t explained. Harper only mentions that it seemed like Jack needed to see somebody that he knew that he could trust. Jack sits on the bench with his boss and explains the mysterious bank accounts tied to a bank there in Moscow. He explains that the accounts are all holding large amounts of American dollars. While news reports are indicating that the dollar should be decreasing in value, the opposite is occurring because of people moving money behind the scenes. And this is coordinated with other bank accounts around the world.
What Jack Ryan fears is an upcoming terrorist attack. He believes that you can pinpoint the timing of the next terrorist attack by watching the way that money moves through accounts. All of these bank accounts will quickly trade away their American dollars right after a successful terrorist attack, devaluing the currency and causing hyper-inflation and a crippling economic recession.
The following day Jack Ryan visits Cherevin bank and its president, Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh). The bank has extremely tight security and Jack needs an escort at all times. Near the top of the building is Viktor’s office, a luxurious office complete with a massive painting of Napoleon’s iconic defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
Viktor isn’t pleased to meet with the banking officer, especially when Jack wants to investigate a few bank accounts. Instead of gaining him access to their banking system, Viktor gives Jack a folder with the information. It’s useless though as his bank no longer controls those accounts. It seems like Jack Ryan’s trip to Moscow was a complete waste of time. Jack still thinks that Viktor is hiding something, so he buys time by inviting Viktor to dinner at a fancy restaurant across the street. Viktor accepts only if Jack promises to bring along his wife, the woman who just checked into Jack’s hotel room.
Outside of the bank, Jack gets into the CIA’s special vehicle and meets with Thomas Harper and a few other agents. He explains what just happened at his meeting and how the building itself has extremely tight security. Jack still believes that the files are accessible in the building, but they need a way inside of there to access them. When Jack explains what the agent who will be going inside of Cherevin’s building is going to need to do, he realizes that it’s him. He will be the person sneaking into the secure bank.
At the hotel, Cathy is waiting for Jack inside of his hotel room. She’s discovered the pistol that Thomas gave Jack, and she really wants to know what’s happening. When Jack explains that he’s with the CIA, Cathy is overjoyed with the news. She was fearing that he was having an affair.
Thomas Harper joins Jack and Cathy in the hotel room, and they discuss how Jack is going to get into the bank building right under Viktor’s nose. Cathy is going to help play a role in the trick. It’s known that Viktor is a ladies man, and all Cathy has to do is sit with Viktor at their table in the restaurant for a few minutes while Jack runs across the street, goes into the building, and copies the computer files. If Cathy can keep Viktor distracted for about ten minutes, then the plan will work. Jack doesn’t want Cathy to be involved, but she and Thomas both insist on her being part of the plan.
Jack and Cathy get dressed and ride to the restaurant. While in the car, Jack puts Cathy’s engagement ring back onto her finger. There’s a flashback showing the moment when they became engaged to each other. Jakc reminds her that it’s important for her to wear the ring and look like his wife so that Viktor will stay focused on her and not him.
They arrive at the restaurant and Jack, Cathy and Viktor all sit down at a table. Jack intentionally drinks a lot of wine and appears to get drunk. He plays into the act and insults his wife. When Cathy needs to use the restroom, Jack refuses to escort her. Viktor escorts her instead, and while he’s walking a man accidentally bumps into him. The “bump” was actually a CIA agent stealing Viktor’s wallet. He gives Jack the security card.
When Cathy and Viktor return from the restroom, Jack is still acting drunk and foolish. Cathy insists that her husband goes and takes a walk to get sober. Jack takes her advice and does so, and Cathy and Viktor sit back at the table. Once he’s out of their sight, Jack hurries out of the restaurant and goes across the street to the bank building. He uses the security card to gain access. As we see, one of the security guards in the bank is also a CIA agent, and he grants Jack access into the building.
Jack uses the elevator and reaches Viktor’s office. As he uses his laptop to access the bank’s files, Thomas Harper is across the street and keeping an eye out for Jack. Once Jack starts accessing the files, the bank’s security system becomes aware of unauthorized access. It alerts the Russians but the security is powerless to stop the CIA’s powerful computer program. As security rushes up to Viktor’s office, Jack races against time to copy the bank’s secret accounts. Jack uses a private elevator and barely escapes before the security guards enter the office.
The private elevator only takes Jack partially down the building. He’s forced to go outside and use the external staircase to reach the street. Thomas uses a sniper rifle from across the street to shoot and kill a few security guards trying to catch Jack. He makes it to the street and passes off his material before running into Cathy and Viktor, both of them heading to the bank from the restaurant. Viktor’s men search Jack for the stolen information, but he’s clean.
Both Jack and Cathy ride in the CIA’s van with Thomas Harper. Harper thinks that it’s going to take time to de-crypt the files, but Jack had already seen what he needed to see. Sure enough, the bank accounts are set to dump all of their American funds . . . in the next eighteen hours. The terrorist attack will most likely occur a few moments before the scheduled transfer of funds.
They make it to the safe house, but almost immediately they’re attacked by Viktor’s men. They had followed the CIA’s van the whole time. It’s chaos as the men fire at the CIA agents and kidnap Cathy. She’s forced into a vehicle and taken away from the safe house. Jack quickly jumps into one of the cars and gives chase.
What Cathy didn’t know was that while the engagement ring was briefly off her finger in the hotel, the CIA secretly put a tracking device on it. The device works and Thomas Harper is able to give Jack directions to the vehicle carrying her. It’s a wild chase through the streets of Moscow as Jack closes the distance and tries to save Cathy.
By now Viktor is aware that the CIA infiltrated his bank, and it was Jack Ryan who stole the financial data. Viktor is the orchestrator behind the upcoming terrorist attack. He’s riding in the car with Cathy and uses her as bait to get Jack to give back the information. Viktor uses Cathy’s phone and calls Jack, taunting him and allowing him to listen as he’s about to torture Cathy.
Jack almost reaches Viktor’s car when he’s suddenly stopped by a garbage truck. He slams on the brakes, but his car still crashes into the large vehicle. Jack jumps out of his car and tries to chase the other vehicle, but it turns around a corner and keeps going. He’s heartbroken until Thomas tells him that the road loops back to that point. Jack grabs a heavy pipe, and when the vehicle returns, he smashes the pipe against the car’s driver. The car crashes and Jack rescues Cathy. The CIA’s van arrives and they’re able to flee before the Russian police arrive on scene.
While flying back to the U.S., the group goes through the data and tries to figure out where the terrorist attack will take place. They discover that Viktor Cherevin’s son, Aleksandr Borovsky (Alec Utgoff), is actually alive and had emigrated to the U.S. with a pair of Russian agents, all of them posing as a family living in Dearborn, Michigan. Once that connection is made, they investigate the other family members and make other discoveries. One is that a relative was living in an isolated part of Pennsylvania. The other discovery is that the terrorist attack will take place against Wall Street.
In Detroit, we see that the Borovsky family is “activated” for their mission in the U.S. They quickly destroy all of their evidence in their home, and Aleksandr eliminates a suspected government man who had been following him. The government man, the same that Jack Ryan was passing information to earlier in the film, was actually an agent of the FBI.
By the time that the FBI is alerted to the potential terrorists living in Detroit, they are long gone. The same is true for whomever was living in a farm house in Pennsylvania. What was discovered was that a vehicle was recently painted at the farm house, and it’s most likely filled with explosives.
Once the CIA’s jet lands in New Jersey, Jack Ryan and Thomas Harper board a helicopter to fly to Manhattan. The streets around Wall Street are all placed on lock down, and there’s a heavy police presence. Jack looks around and thinks that it looks too easy. Somehow the Russians are going to attack in a different method. Suddenly he spots a police van with paint smudges. It’s the terrorist! The police van races away and Jack follows behind on his friend’s motorcycle.
As soon as the police van makes a turn, Jack discovers what’s about to happen. The terrorist attack is going to take place underneath Wall Street. It’s an attack that’ll deliver a crippling blow like that of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. He calls Thomas and alerts him to what’s about to happen, but the phone’s connection breaks as Jack races underground.
The chase continues through a construction site and underneath the streets of New York City. The van finally stops and Jack crashes into it. Aleksandr then activates a five-minute timer on the explosives. Jack gets to his feet and tries to stop the bomb, but Aleksandr fights him. The fight lasts for a few moments until Jack gains the upper hand. Unable to stop the explosives, Jack gets behind the wheel of the van and tries to drive it somewhere safe. He thinks quickly and heads towards the water.
Jack fights his way through traffic and finds an open path to the water. He then notices that Aleksandr had gotten into the back of the van, and he’s trying to hotwire the explosives to detonate immediately. Jack sets the cruise control and ties the seatbelt to the steering wheel before climbing into the back and stopping Aleksandr. He’s able to delay the terrorist until the van reaches the edge of the pier. Jack jumps out of the van before it plunges into the water and the explosives detonate in a huge explosion. Fortunately, the water absorbed most of the energy and the city has been saved.
The terrorist attack was unsuccessful and Viktor held off on dumping the American currency. He’s later requested to meet in a forest where he’s executed by the Russian prime minister’s bodyguards. The prime minister had authorized Viktor to carry out the attack, but there couldn’t be any evidence linking it back to Russia. The attack failed, the CIA learned about the bank accounts linked to Russia, and the prime minister had to eliminate the final link between the attack and Moscow. Even though Viktor was dying from a terminal illness and only had a couple of months to live, he was still executed in cold blood.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit ends with Thomas Harper and Jack Ryan giving a debriefing to the president of the United States.
FINAL THOUGHTS
So is this latest film based on Tom Clancy characters any good?
Not really.
With a running time of only 105 minutes, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a quickly paced movie that doesn’t really establish a complete story, or much of a thrilling one for that matter.
For starters, we never really learn why Viktor Cherevin wanted to carry out such a crippling attack against the U.S. Some brief clips in the film hint about Russia being concerned with a new oil pipeline that’s being planned in Turkey, but that’s really about it. Don’t expect to hear anything from Russia’s prime minister or other diplomats either. There’s no diplomacy here or any military action either.
Thomas Harper’s presence in Moscow seemed quite out of place. Why would he of all people be participating in covert ops and even operating a sniper rifle? Those are the jobs for the secret soldiers, not for the older handlers and supervisors. Besides, the Russian spies should have spotted him quickly, especially when he had his meeting with Jack Ryan in the park. He should have been an easy target for Viktor’s men.
It was way too convenient that the CIA agent was able to steal Viktor’s wallet and ID card at the restaurant, and that Jack Ryan was so easily able to not only enter the bank’s large building, but also Viktor’s office of all places. Shouldn’t there have been at least a *little* bit more security in such a building? Also, shouldn’t the bank’s server have had a way of locking itself the moment it detected somebody unauthorized trying to access its files?
Why did the film place the Russian sleeper agents in Dearborn, Michigan of all places? While Detroit is known for having a lot of immigrants from eastern Europe, that particular suburb is famous for its large concentration of Muslims, not Russians. The film could have placed the Russians in almost any other working-class suburb in that city and made it more realistic.
Speaking of the sleeper agents, whatever happened to the rest of the people who helped Aleksandr? Did he kill all of them? Did they all run away to new hiding places? Shouldn’t there have been more terrorists actually carrying out the major attack instead of letting the whole attack operation rely on a single person?
What’s the point of having the twist where Aleksandr is revealed as Viktor’s son when we really don’t know anything about either person? There’s practically NO story behind either of them. How can we be surprised when we know nothing about them? The same goes true for when the murdered government contact turns out to be an FBI agent. When there are NO other scenes with these other characters in the film, how are we supposed to feel any shock, surprise, or remorse when things happen to them?
That’s called poor story telling. It’s dumbing down the story and making it insulting to the audience.
Why aren’t there any extra CIA operatives assisting with Jack Ryan and Thomas Harper? Sure, we see two other people helping while in Russia, but they weren’t soldiers. Why does this film transform Jack Ryan into a James Bond-like action star where it’s up to him to save the world? Here we have a Jack Ryan who infiltrates an allegedly secure bank headquarters in Russia, he drives a car on a high-speed chase on the streets of Moscow, he later uses a motorcycle for a chase scene in New York City, and there’s that whole end sequence with the fight in the ambulance with the terrorist.
Normally, Jack Ryan himself does little fighting in his films. He’s not an action person. Jack Ryan is an analyst who is sometimes in positions where action takes place around him. He uses his combat skills to get himself out of trouble, and he almost always has other people there to assist him. It’s not supposed to be Jack Ryan versus the World.
So why are there so many action scenes with Jack Ryan in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit? That’s not how it works in the Tom Clancy novels. Most of the time it’s the other characters who do the covert ops and most of the actual fighting. That’s why there are characters like John Clark and Domingo Chavez. Those people are the CIA’s secret soldiers, not analysts like Jack Ryan.
Here we have a film that is based on the Tom Clancy characters, but it does a rather sorry job of telling a good story and staying true to the source material. On top of that, it seemed like none of the actors really gave a good job performing their roles as well. Kevin Costner seemed to be going through the motions, Chris Pine looked like a soldier, not an experienced financial analyst, and Keira Knightly was just plain annoying. How somebody thought that she would make a good version of Cathy, I’ll never know.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit had so much potential going for it. This could have been a thrilling story and fantastic movie thanks to Tom Clancy’s already established and well-known characters.
But it’s not.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) – movie trailer
Not only is Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit a mediocre film, but it also fails as a Tom Clancy type of film. This is a film that not only dumbed down the Tom Clancy characters, but it made a pretty lousy film with numerous plot holes as well.
Game over. Try again.
